Marion Cotillard Has Joined the Most Promising Video Game Movie of All Time

Nearly three years ago, Michael Fassbender became attached to the adaptation of Assassin’s Creed, and the movie blogosphere had a field day debating whether the actor would “rescue” the video game movie genre altogether or, more plausibly, merely give this specific one a bit of prestige. At the time, Fassbender had given moviegoers who wouldn’t normally care about the X-Men franchise or Alien prequels reason to see X-Men: First Class and Prometheus, and everyone came away agreeing he’s the best part of both, even if they didn’t necessarily find the movies to be worthwhile just to see him in them.

It’s been a while since then, and many of us had forgotten about Assassin’s Creed and how it had been the most promising-sounding adaptation of its kind since Super Mario Bros. announced it would star the Oscar-nominated actor from Mona Lisa and Who Framed Roger Rabbit? But now, we can still forget about Fassbender’s surprising continued involvement with Assassin’s Creed, because his newly cast co-star might give the thing even more prestige. According to Deadline, current Oscar-nominated actress Marion Cotillard has signed on for an undisclosed role.

Cotillard, who has also done her share of superhero movies and other Hollywood genre flicks in between her more respectable turns in works like Rust and Bone and Two Days, One Night, is already starring opposite Fassbender in the latest movie of Shakespeare’s “Macbeth,” out sometime this year. And the director of that adaptation just happens to be Justin Kurzel, who is also at the helm of Assassin’s Creed. While we haven’t seen the result of their collaboration there, we can assume the trio at least worked well together, and that’s why they’re joining forces again. The two actors are also committing to the franchise if it’s successful. They must have some confidence in the expected quality of the first one. Now we also have more reason to.

Assassin’s Creed is currently in pre-production and has a release date of December 21, 2016.